By: Jessica A. Dennehy
Texas: The Lone Star State. Home to over 31 million residents, Democrats make up 46.54% of the state’s registered voters. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans make up 37.75%, yet in its 28 U.S. House seats, 12 are held by Democrats, 1 is currently vacant, and the remaining 25 are held by Republican representatives. It doesn’t take a mathematician to notice that the numbers don’t line up nicely. Texas has a long history of partisan gerrymandering—a fully legal practice of intentionally drawing district lines to favor a certain political party—and its latest attempts are drawing eyes from across the country.
Back in 2003, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay attempted something similar, spearheading a highly controversial effort to redistrict what used to be several Democratic districts into Republican-leaning ones. What made this unexpected, however, was the timing of it: redistricting has traditionally followed the national censuses, yet Texas began redistricting three years after the last census in 2000. Despite Democrats staging walkouts and fleeing to neighboring states in an attempt to withhold a quorum, the GOP’s efforts succeeded, with the Republicans capturing a strong majority of Texas’s congressional delegation (the last time that had happened was before Reconstruction). These redistricted maps ended up in front of the Supreme Court (see League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006)), with SCOTUS upholding the majority of the maps save for a few exceptions. They ruled that the redistricting of District 23 violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Hispanic residents, resulting in a federal court redrawing it and the neighboring districts.
But why does this matter? The Texan effort to once again redraw their congressional district lines mid-decade stems from the urgings of Donald Trump (ring any bells?). The proposal is aimed at transforming five districts that are either democratic-leaning or swinging to solidly red strongholds. This shift, designed to bolster the GOP’s positioning in next year’s midterm elections, could help maintain control of the closely contested House of Representatives. With the President pushing for redistricting, Texas Republicans could even secure these additional districts before the decade is finished. Speaking of the 2024 election, President Trump declared, “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, and we are entitled to five more seats.”
History is repeating itself once again, as more than 50 Democratic lawmakers have left the state of Texas. Fleeing to solidly blue states, like Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts, they sit out of reach of Texas arrest warrants and their state’s ability to meet the two-thirds quorum necessary for conducting business. Texas governor Greg Abbott has already threatened to arrest the absent lawmakers, fining them $500 daily for their absence and “shirking” of their duties. The Texan Attorney General Ken Paxton has even begun petitioning the Texas Supreme Court to oust 13 of the Democratic members for “abandoning” their duties. However, Gene Wu, chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus and state representative, rebutted the claim, remarking that “Denying the Governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office. It was a fulfillment of my oath.”
This power struggle down South has caused ripple effects that extend across the entire nation. Democratic governors in New York, California, and Illinois have already sworn to retaliate if the new maps are approved, having even discussed new Democrat-favoring maps in their own states. New York Governor Kathy Hochul openly discussed the potential retaliation, telling her constituents that “This is a war, and that’s why the gloves are off.” Of course, if Texan efforts do succeed, Republican-controlled states like Indiana, Missouri, and Florida could follow Texas’s lead in redrawing mid-cycle. Vice President JD Vance, supporting the President’s stance, has even met with Indiana legislators, urging them to follow in Texas’s footsteps.
This mid-decade redistricting effort attempts to weaponize congressional maps to the extent that so long as one party has control of a state’s government, it can immediately redraw districts to secure political control even years after the census. These efforts have already deepened polarization and undermined the principles of equal representation. Gerrymandered districts, having reduced electoral competitiveness, often produced “safe seats,” where incumbents (of the favored party) will face minimal competition from challengers. Additionally, when drawn along racial or ethnic lines (even though that is unconstitutional), gerrymandered districts can weaken the political influence of entire communities, with representatives having no need to compromise or even appeal to a wide breadth of voters.
What is unfolding in Austin is, unfortunately, only the latest in the nation’s fight for political affluence. As the states threaten to answer each other’s actions with their own partisan gerrymandering, they risk losing the premise of American democracy—that representation will bend to the will of political squabbles and not the will of the voters.